Rod Liddle: Government reaction to poisoning was 'petulant, shrill and hysterical'

Journalist Rod Liddle has told George Galloway that the British Government’s reaction to the Sergei Skripal poisoning was “Petulant, shrill, hysterical and counterproductive.”

“We cannot be sure it comes from the Kremlin,” he said of the crime. “It could come from the Russian mafia, it could come from anywhere. We simply do not know.”

“Until it’s clear, we should not be making ultimatums, like a transgressed eight-year-old child. It’s pathetic."

Liddle added that there was no true way of determining who had supplied the poison, and in expelling Russia diplomats “we are harming ourselves.”

“It probably leaves us open to more machinations from Russia. I’m not a supporter of Putin. I think we would be better off if we were peaceable with Russia.”

Boris Johnson’s comparison of Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler, meanwhile, should be a “sackable offence,” said Liddle. “20 million people in Russia died fighting Hitler. To compare Putin to Hitler is grotesque. It’s should be a sackable offence.”